30 MARCH 1996, Page 34

Snake in Autumn

A lithe fat flash of light below the compost Reveals his coils, flesh swollen, slowly writhing In warm October leaves. One eye is blind. A wound along his body weeps with pus. I pick him up and cradle his old age, His sightless eye, his unhealed stinking gash, Study his proud exhaustion, his sad fear, Then gently put him down. He slithers off Back into barricades of compost, back Into the winter of death, and out of sight.

Anthony Thwaite